Some great news on this velvety cheek day: Fictional, yet somehow also real hard rock band Spinal Tap is reuniting to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of This is Spinal Tap. A commemorative mockumentary screening will take place at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and the band will perform as part of the festivities. Released in 1984, This Is Spinal Tap follows the band on a planned tour of America (and an unplanned tour of the backstage of a Cleveland arena) on what seems to be the waning end of their career:
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer will all appear for a one-night-only concert in which they’ll perform as themselves in tribute to Spinal Tap. While they won’t be character as Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls, they will still presumably use the accents. (The intro to “Stonehenge” isn’t nearly as effective without them.) They’ll be joined by the film’s director, Rob Reiner, for a conversation after the show.
Guest, McKean and Shearer last reunited for a tour as Spinal Tap in 2009, and have worked together musically as The Folksmen—the trio from the 2003 mockumentary A Mighty Wind—since 1984. Harry Shearer’s Derek Smalls character also released a solo album this year called Smalls Change (Meditations On Ageing), which features some of the real rock legends that the fictional Smalls has befriended over the years, including Dweezil Zappa, David Crosby, and Donald Fagan.
If that isn’t enough nostalgia and/or angst for you, next year’s Tribeca Film Festival will also by hosting a special 25th anniversary celebration for Ben Stiller’s Generation X classic Reality Bites. Stiller will be in attendance, along with cast members Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, and Steve Zahn.
The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival will run April 24 to May 5, 2019., with announcements of more screenings and special presentations to follow. We’re looking forward to finding out which famous drummer has a death wish and will sit behind the kit for Spinal Tap. No word on whether Viv Savage is available for keyboard work.
92 Comments
Glad you mentioned the Derek Smalls album, I did not know about it until now. A few sneak-peeks on Youtube confirm that it’s def. a must-buy.
I guess McKean is done walking to Edmonton to give $85 to a snail charity.
RIP, Martin Luther Gandhi Tyler Moore
It’s the only reasonable way to live.
Good thing his namesake was the patron saint of quality footwear, with all that walking.
This comment just put me in a good place.
As an Edmontonian, whaaaa?
As a fan of great comedy, watch The Good Place. Not to get the reference, but because it is great.
Fun fact: the first time I watched This is Spinal Tap, I took it completely at face value and didn’t realise it was a spoof.I kept thinking to myself, “Man, that guy looks a lot like Michael McKean.” I was 18 at the time.*shakes head*
My brother turned me on to this movie way back when. He too didn’t know that it was a fake documentary, but told me that it was after he found out. There weren’t really many mockumentaries back then I guess. I wish I could have watched it not knowing. Kinda like that time a girlfriend told me about this awesome movie where this character named Kaiser Soze turns out to be… Then I watched the movie post-spoiler, with no way to regain my Usual Suspects virginity.
Kinda like when I watched Blair Witch.
This is Spinal Tap basically *created* the genre of the mockumentary as we know it. There were certainly satires before it, but the idea of making something that was just slightly an exaggeration of what it was mocking was a new thing. It’s a hard thing to do well. Even Christopher Guest’s later mockumentaries (without Reiner) have been hit or miss in this regard.
I first saw it when I was 14 and I half thought it was real. I recognized Rob Reiner and the explosive drummers told me it was fake, but I still wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t real.
That’s exactly it.I mean, Billy Crystal and Dana Carvey are in it (in makeup, mind) and yet my mind kept thinking, “Is this… is this made up? Nah, it can’t be.”It makes me laugh at how naive I was then, but I guess it could be read as a compliment to how naturalistic the acting was. But still, I was a dumbass.
Mime is money!
When you’re ready I have something to tell you about Santa Claus.
Me too! I had always thought I was the only one!Something something this is how it feels when doves cry
…this dove goes up to eleven.
Same.When the commercials came out, my friends and I…all avid metalheads…couldn’t understand how we’d never heard of this band!It was only after I’d seen the first shot of David St. Hubbins and realized that was “Lenny” from Laverne & Shirley did it occur to me this was a fake documentary.
If you want the real thing, check out Heavy Metal Parking Lot.
I think I heard that during one of the early press screenings in the UK, there was a lot of grumbling from the music press in the audience about why these guys they’d never heard of and what had they done to qualify for a documentary until Patrick Macnee appeared as a record company executive and the penny dropped at that point.
Had a friend who worked in a record store in the 80s, and said folks would come in all the time looking for their albums. So it’s not just you…
Well they did have at least one real album.
The first time I had heard of Spinal Tap was from the Simpsons episode they were in. So I just assumed they were a real band like all the other ones who had been in other episodes.
I knew it was a mockumentary when I saw it; but I had more trouble getting around the fact that David St. Hubbins and Lenny (from Lenny and Squiggy) were the same guy.
I went to see it when it first came out and half the audience thought it was real. And they were PSYCHED!
It’s Mr. Burns, with a FOX attitude!
‘Tis a lucky bun day, indeed.
I know what you mean.
I love her each weekday…
each velvety cheek day
You know what I mean!
We know what you mean.
During the late 80s, I remember my friends that worked at the Record Exchange told me about a woman that came in looking to buy the Spinal Tap back catalog, which she divined by looking at the cover of the soundtrack.
Can never forget Brainhammer, Intrvenus de Milo or Shark Sandwich.
The review for “Shark Sandwich” was merely a two word review which simply read “Shit Sandwich”.
You can’t print that!
Where can they print that?!
Hopefully she managed to track down the elusive Heavy Metal Memories double album.
Who’s the (un)lucky drummer these days?
One of my best friends has a licence plate that reads “UP 2 11″, which I think she uses partially as a personality test to see who gets the reference.
Please, please, please go on tour!
I’ve seen a couple of their concerts and it’s totally worth the money.
This is great! I would love to crank this concert up to 11 but everything I own is digital and things go up to 45, its just not the same magic as 11.
Why not just make 44 louder?
“Some great news on this velvety cheek day:” – That was funny opener with a Sean O’Nealean gestalt, good stuff Jill.
I was born in 1984, too! Yay for me!…No one? Oh well.
I’m with ya.
It was really the best year in the 80’s to be born.
Can I raise a practical question at this point…. Are they gonna do “Stonehenge”?
Probably complete with on-stage delivery of the props via courier envelope.
Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.
Smalls Change was fucking amazing
Controversial opinion: This Is Spinal Tap does not hold up. Yes, I appreciate its importance in helping create the mockumentary format and its cult status, but watching it recently, the pacing and editing seem way off by modern standards. I think Guest’s later efforts hold up much better.
Counterpoint: your opinion sucks.
Just in general, modern pacing is radically different from days past. For just one example of this, compare any pre-Ecclestone Dr. Who episode to any from Ecclestone on.That’s not a flaw of Spinal Tap, it’s a characteristic. Plus, the slow pace often serves the movie well.
This Is Spinal Tap is still one of the funniest movies of all time. Up there with Airplane and Caddyshack.
Like I told a guy at work this movie basically rendered all Rock documentaries after it pointless and not necessary. Go see Bohemian Crapsody? Why?
Is that your “Hot Take”?
“OLD MOVIES ARE DIFFERENT FROM NEW MOVIES AND ARE BAD”
Your comment is the stuff of a madman’s dreams…
You obviously aren’t a musician.If you were, you would relate to every goddamned minute of that film like it was your own life story. Seriously- Every working musician has a story about their own Spinal Tap moment, where they got lost in the backstage hallways or a prop went horribly wrong or they started picking up the police band on their wireless unit.Also, as both Spinal Tap and as the Folksmen, these guys are actually shockingly good. After their 1992 album Break Like the Wind, they went on tour- Where the joke band was performing songs they’d written and recorded, opening for top 40 acts that were lip-syncing to producer-written material.
Are you kidding me? That movie was freaking prophetic.
That’s like holding the costuming of the BBC’s 70’s and 80’s productions of plays and stories set in the pre 1900s or hell pre 1800s against them. A lot of shit we take for granted evolved from a seeming neanderthal place. If almost every entry from a specific time shows these same flaws distribute the criticism evenly among the era.
Excited for Spinal Pap.
Let’s be honest: Spinal Tap hasn’t been relevant since the fourth drummer died.
Don’t they have to do some public thing like this every dozen years or so to retain the copyright or something?
I think Vivendi owns it…hmm…yeah, looked it up…everything from the music to the characters themselves is owned by Vivendi SA, and the actors are still in the middle of a lawsuit over failure to provide royalties past the original release.
If there were justice in this Universe, this announcement would have been made on 11/11…Nigel Tufnel Day.
What’s wrong with being sexy?
I’m 100% sure this hasn’t aged well.
have they found a new drummer yet?
They did, but he quit soon thereafter. Said he “couldn’t take this 4/4 shit”…
“If that isn’t enough nostalgia and/or angst for you, next year’s Tribeca Film Festival will also by hosting a special 25th anniversary celebration for Ben Stiller’s Generation X classic Reality Bites.”Man, there’s so much wrong with that sentence…
I hope Viv’s there.Poor Viv…
“Have a good time … all the time.”
Drummer predictions: 1. Dave Grohl – because Dave Grohl2. Kenny Aronoff – because he plays on everything and fits in a little more generation-wise3. Jason Bonham – because he’s great and his dad to drums what Hendrix is to the electric guitar.4. Josh Freese – because he also plays on everything Wildcard Pick: Ilan Rubin – because he plays on everything else and it’d be fun but a longshot I think.Superwildcard Pick: Bill Burr – because comedy?
Garth Algar.
I think you win.
To be fair, I would totally fly out to New York to see Dave Grohl jamming with Tap.
The funny thing is half the albums anyone’s heard over the last 20 or 30 years most likely featured Josh or Kenny. (Am a drummer. And love both of those guys)
I’m actually as underwhelmed by this comeback as I would be if you told me the Stones or the Who were going to be touring again this coming summer.
There is no denying the logic of a statement like “but this one goes to eleven.”
Will they be playing free-form jazz? Will there be a puppet show?
Now more than ever before, Derek Smalls will feel like a preserved moose on stage.
Can I raise a practical question at this point? Are they gonna do “Stonehenge”?
Skwisgar, Murderface, and Toki
I am profoundly disappointed that you could not find a way to use the “proper” n-diaeresis/umlaut for the name of the band. I’m just as disappointed that the combining diaeresis from the character map doesn’t work on these comments either (though the dotless “i” does): Spın̈al Tap. Best I can do. I know you can do better with your fancy fonts and formatting.
Dave Grohl needs to be involved!!! Please and Thank You!!
As much as I love Spinal Tap, these reunions always bother me. Throughout the movie they are shown to be constantly changing. Spinal Tap was only their current iteration. They were the New Originals and the Thamesmen before that. Hell, Spinal Tap was originally a hippy band. They were always changing names and styles, latching on to whatever was popular at the time, never quite getting ahead of the curve. Surely, they should have moved on from the metal scene by now.
I’m looking for pound notes, loose change, bad checks, anything …
There really is a Shank Hall in Milwaukee now. Just sayin’.